Caleb Forrester
by Aurilia
Summary: Everyone's lives are defined by a handful of events experienced while growing up. This is the history of those events as they pertain to the character of Caleb. Companion to my Run For Your Life 'verse, though capable of standing alone.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** Though we only heard from or about Caleb a couple of times on Show (and one of those times being when that Meg bitch slit his throat), I've always wanted to know more about him. This is my attempt to fill in the great, gaping chasm that is his backstory. This is set in my _Run for Your Life _'verse, but you don't really need to have read that in order to understand this (though, for readers of RFYL, I'll more than likely wind up making reference to this story at some point, so you should probably go ahead and read this).

Unbetaed, so any and all mistakes are my own – was originally written to be a lengthy onefer, but I decided to break it into chapters for stylistic reasons. There are eight chapters in total.

* * *

**Caleb Forrester**

_September 17, 1970_

Bryant Forrester pulled the aging station wagon to a halt in the driveway of a small, one-story white clapboard house in which he had spent the last six years living with his wife. He shut the engine off and slumped forwards, resting his head on the steering wheel. He wasn't all too sure what he was supposed to do now. Corrine had always been the one to make the decisions – where they lived, what sort of work he did, when the lawn needed mowing – and now…well, now he was just _lost_; his compass didn't have a north anymore. The needle was spinning, sometimes slowly like it had been shaken, and sometimes quickly like if it was sitting on an iron plate.

The sound of the baby fussing in the back seat brought him out of…it wasn't _thinking_ that he'd been doing, exactly. His thoughts had been swirling around so fast that none of them had made much of an impression and so he had no idea just how long he'd been sitting there, propped against the steering wheel. He sighed and levered himself out of the seat.

The driver's door opened with a harsh squeal – one of the many things on Corrine's Fix-It list that was perpetually mounted on the refrigerator door – and his boots made an interesting crunching noise on the gravel of the drive. He opened the back door of the station wagon as he shut the front and hoisted the overflowing bag of whatnot from the floorboards before undoing the seatbelt holding the heavy plastic carrier to the bench. The infant was not happy at _all_, if the noise was anything to go by.

He made his way through air that smelled of burning leaves to the front door and suddenly found himself lacking hands. He sat the carrier down on the porch and hurriedly dug into his pocket for his keys, only to find that he must have left them in the ignition. Sighing again, he turned around and headed back to the car, rubbing his temples in a vain attempt to ward off the headache that was trying like hell to ambush him.

Keys retrieved, he unlocked the door and picked up the carrier with its howling contents and headed for the kitchen at the back of the house. Wracking his brain for the information the nurse at the hospital had told him about mixing up formula, he stumbled his way through the process. It took him three tries: the first time, the powder didn't mix with the water and sat in a lumpy mass in the bottom of the bottle – he then reread the instructions and saw that he should have used _warm_ water; the second try was somewhat more successful, and probably would have been right, but the bottle slipped his grip when he went to screw the nipple into place and it spilled down his jeans and across the faded yellow linoleum. Finally, he managed to get a bottle put together and tried to get the baby to eat by holding it over the carrier which was sitting on the table.

It didn't work, and the infant only cried louder. His face was screwed up, red with blotches of an alarming purple color, and his hands (covered by the ends of sleeves that were just a shade too long for him) vibrated to either side of his head.

Bryant could feel hopeless frustration mounting quickly. "Come on, just eat already," he grumbled, moving the nipple on the bottle to between his son's open lips.

The baby wasn't interested, and simply continued to scream.

Much like with how he'd lost track of time while sitting in the car, Bryant had no idea how long he sat there, bottle in hand, begging and pleading with the baby to just _shut up and eat already_, but it felt like _hours_. The noise of the doorbell was what interrupted him before he could work himself up to either infanticide or suicide (both were equally likely in his current mental state).

Guiltily thankful for the diversion, he sat the bottle down on the table next to the carrier and all but ran to the door. Even a Jehovah's Witness would be appreciated, though he felt he could settle for a decent salesman or even a guy who just needed the telephone. As fate would have it, his visitor was none of these things. It was Chastitine Montgomery.

Bryant's headache doubled in its efforts to remove his brain by way of his ears.

He opened the door and stared at the woman as though to say 'what the hell do _you_ want'. She was dressed as usual, in a very outdated dark gray suit, with the brown leather shoes that Bryant had only ever seen worn by creaking librarians, and an extremely large hat with a wide brim, festooned with enough sheer white ribbon and silk flowers that it was barely noticeable that it exactly matched the wool of her skirt and jacket.

Mrs. Montgomery ignored the fact that Bryant had yet to say anything to her and began speaking. "I heard about what happened with your dear Corrine," she said, stepping closer to Bryant. "And it occurs to me," she continued both speaking and moving until, somehow, the elderly woman had managed to get them both inside the living room with the door shut behind them, "that though darling Corrine surely must have spent time learning how to deal with a baby, she never once mentioned that you had done the same."

_Of course I hadn't. I work nights at the mill and most evenings and weekends at the bar. When the hell would I have had time to learn all that crap?_

Again, ignoring the silence emanating from her host, Mrs. Montgomery continued as though he'd given her a proper reply. She also managed her subtle herding trick to maneuver Bryant back towards the air-raid siren sitting on the kitchen table. "You have my deepest sympathies, of course," she said as they passed through the hallway that also led to the house's two bedrooms (the Jack'n'Jill bath connected the two bedrooms as well). "Dear Corrine will be most sincerely missed, though I daresay June Carlson and I might just have a chance at winning the bridge championship at church this year." As they arrived in the kitchen, her voice didn't seem to change in volume any but was still clearly audible, despite his son's best efforts. "Oh, forgive me. Perhaps it is rather too soon to attempt to inject any levity into the gravity of the situation. Of course, it is. How silly of me."

Mrs. Montgomery removed her flower-bedecked hat and sat it on the pile of dishes still sitting in the drying rack where Corrine had left them after supper four days earlier. She eyed the open container of formula powder on the counter, as well as the scattering of powdered mix surrounding it and the large puddle slowly congealing on the floor while continuing to talk. "I saw you drive past two hours ago," she unbuttoned her suit jacket and hung it on the back of one of the metal-and-vinyl chairs, "and thought to give you a little time to settle in before dropping by. But, from the looks of things, I ought to have come a little sooner."

Still locked in a state of brain-melting _I-don't-know-what-to-do-please-make-it-stop-Corrine_ inertia, Bryant stood in the doorway and watched while Mrs. Montgomery and her tightly-curled, blue-rinsed hair reached down with carefully manicured hands and unbuckled the weirdly-colored, horribly upset, screeching baby from the car seat and picked him up as though she didn't notice the wailing. Making shushing noises, she still managed to continue talking. Bryant had the fleeting thought that Chastitine Montgomery would still be talking in her grave.

Regardless of his personal dislike for the woman, he did know he needed help. And so, he listened, burying his dislike under a veritable mountain of helpful knowledge the woman imparted. Since she'd had seven children of her own, Bryant figured she knew what she was doing. His supposition was proven absolutely correct when, less than twenty minutes later, the house was blessedly free of squalling infant noise.

His son had needed his diaper changed.

Bryant simultaneously felt monumentally stupid for not having even _thought_ about the possibility, and inordinately grateful that Mrs. Montgomery had shown him the 'right' way to change a boy's diaper so as to avoid extremely unpleasant side-effects.

By the time that Mrs. Montgomery headed back home at nearly midnight that night, for the first time since the doctor had come to the waiting room three days ago and said _there's bad news and good news_ with a too-serious expression on his face, Bryant felt as though he might, just _might_, be able to go on.

He stood, exhausted, in the darkened green-and-yellow-pastel nursery and peered down at his son. "Yeah," he whispered, "I think we just might make it after all, Caleb."


	2. Chapter 2

_March 20, 1976_

Caleb practically vibrated with excitement as he clung to his dad's hand while they made their way across the parking lot and into Olympia Stadium. He didn't know it was called that, though; Caleb thought of the place the same way he'd heard his dad talk about it, as 'the old red barn'.

Under his winter coat and an oversized child's copy of a Red Wings jersey, Caleb had a plastic garbage bag tied around his waist. Inside the bag was the absolutely _coolest_ thing he had ever touched in his entire life – an octopus. An octopus with tentacles and suckers and it had been _slimy_ and _alive_ when Dad had brought it home, though it was smaller than the one Dad had in a similar makeshift plastic belt under his own coat and jersey. But that was okay by Caleb. He was a lot smaller than his dad, so it only made sense that his own octopus was smaller, too. They'd boiled the octopuses to kill them and get rid of the slime. Caleb hadn't wanted to kill them, but when his dad explained that if they didn't, the animals would die anyway, either from being out of the water too long or from landing on the ice during the game, the five year-old had agreed it was probably kinder to make sure they didn't suffer too long (though he did wonder if the octopuses could feel the hot water and if it hurt).

It didn't take long to cross the parking lot, but the wait to get through security and to their seats took almost an hour. By the end of that hour, Caleb's dad was about ready to try a leash the next time he had the bright idea to bring his son to a game. Once they found their seats, only a couple of rows back from the glass – when Bryant splurged on something, he did it _right_, damn it – they had to wait some more before the actual game began. It wasn't as irritating as waiting in line had been, but the million-and-one questions Caleb came up with during the remaining half-hour had Bryant strenuously reminding himself just why they didn't do this sort of thing all that often.

When the National Anthem finished, the group surrounding the Forresters (indeed, several clusters and knots of people all around the stadium) remained standing as octopi rained down on the ice. Caleb's dad threw his, like he had told his son earlier, to show how it was done. Caleb would get the chance to throw his later (he hoped), after the Red Wings made their first goal.

With the swiftness that comes with long practice, the ice was soon clear of eight-legged sea creatures, and the game began.

During lulls in the action, Bryant quickly gathered support from his fellow fans to help distract security from identifying Caleb when the kid threw his first octopus. For all that the majority of the folks sitting around them tended to be older, grizzled, and none-too-friendly looking individuals, Bryant was heartened that they cheerfully complied with his request. It made him lose just a touch of the unease he had always felt around Olympia Stadium since the riots in '67.

The plan went off without a hitch. Immediately on the heels of the Red Wings' first goal, Caleb (who had removed his now-rubbery tentacled beast from its plastic wrapper and had been hiding it in the pocket of his coat), seated on his dad's shoulders, threw the eight-inch octopus over the high glass surrounding the ice where it landed in an unoccupied portion of the arena, amid the confusion of standing, stamping, hollering fans.

Later, after the game came to its logical conclusion, Caleb and his dad walked back out to the parking lot amid the crowds of dejected and elated fans. The Forresters were definitely among the 'elated' portion – the Red Wings had managed to beat the Flyers, 4-2. Caleb kept up a steady stream of chatter on the way to the car. Bryant made sure to make appropriate noises as he searched for their parking place. He wasn't all too sure what-all his son was saying, only that there were numerous repetitions of _we did it_ and _the octopuses really do work for luck_ and _when can we do this again_ and _can I be a hockey player when I grow up_ and so on and so on. Bryant had long learned that the easiest way to deal with a hyperactive, babbling kid was merely to let the words flow around and over him. Oddly, it had not been Mrs. Montgomery who had made the suggestion, but one of the guys Bryant worked with at the steel mill.

After another lengthy wait to exit the arena's parking lot – during which Caleb kept on chattering, leading Bryant to the conclusion that, special occasion or not, no way was he _ever_ again going to let Caleb drink four Cokes in a single day – Bryant began navigating his way back to the worn apartment building he'd moved them to when Caleb was six months old.

Halfway to their destination, Bryant mouthed the last Kool from the pack in his pocket and lit it while waiting for a red light. Not wanting to have to make another stop, Bryant asked his son if it would be okay if they got their ice cream at the corner store a few blocks from their apartment. Caleb didn't care; he'd not only gotten to see his very first real life hockey game, but his and Dad's favorite team won all _because_ of the octopus he'd thrown and mere ice cream just couldn't compare.

Still babbling about how luck probably comes in pieces and how his octopus was that one extra piece of luck that had caused the Red Wings to win, Caleb followed his dad into the small store that stayed open late and which carried a little bit of just about everything anyone could need in a pinch.

Like always, a loud jangling of bells accompanied the door opening, overlaid with a loud voice saying _don't care, old man just put the fucking money in_ and then there was a loud pop, like a firecracker, followed by a short scream, and even Caleb startled out of his ongoing monologue to look around.

He saw a man in a heavy canvas coat and a knit mask like the one he always wore whenever he was out playing in the snow shove something in his pocket. The man knocked him aside in his haste to get out the door.

Caleb picked himself up off of the floor and stuck his tongue out at the back of the man as he disappeared from sight. Patrick, the old man who owned the store and who always had a spare piece of penny-candy just _hours_ away from 'expiring', was saying something, but Caleb didn't hear. He had just turned back to face his dad.

Bryant's face was whiter than his chest was whenever Caleb saw him going to or from the shower with a towel around his waist, and he had his writing-hand up, pressed awkwardly against his torso. His dad's knees buckled and Caleb didn't hear himself shout, "Dad!"

Facedown on the floor, his legs tangled partially under and partially behind him, Bryant managed to push himself over onto his side. He could clearly hear Patrick yelling for the other customer in the store – Katie Huley from the apartment above the Forresters – to call for an ambulance. An annoying tickle crept up the back of his throat, and he knew that things weren't going to end well. A big part of that knowledge stemmed from the fact that, though he knew that the robber had shot him, he didn't feel anything but that annoying tickle. He locked his eyes with his son.

Not sure how he'd managed to miss it before, he noticed that Caleb's eyes, though the same color as Corrine's from a distance – a sky-blue that nearly faded to white near the pupil – they also showed a little of his own hazel; they had a thin ring of greenish-brown circling the outermost edge of the iris.

He reached out with the hand not reflexively pressed against his chest in the center of an ever-widening red stain – and that, too, was part of knowing things weren't going to end well; the coat was filled with down and shouldn't have been soaked through quite so quickly. Caleb grabbed his hand and tugged on it, demanding that he get up. Bryant could hear the panic in his voice, and took a breath in order to try to alleviate it. But instead of saying anything, the air caught in his throat and made him cough. By normal standards, the force of the cough was barely that of a clearing-of-the-throat _harrumph_, but it brought the pain.

A light spray of foamy pink landed on Caleb's face and that was when the last of Bryant's fading hope died.

He took in a shallower breath and tried again, but his vision was getting hazy around the edges.

Much later, after the police and the social workers and everything else, the only things Caleb could remember about that day was the fact that luck was made of itty-bitty pieces that added up one way or the other with just one piece being enough to turn the tide, and that his dad's last word had been his name.


	3. Chapter 3

_September 14, 1976_

Caleb's sixth birthday came with remarkably little fanfare – but that was how things were at St. Theresa's Home for Unfortunates. With seventy total children and thirty adults with nowhere else to go, some things had to be ignored. Some of the adults remembered birthdays, but few of the kids did, and there was never anything like a party – at least, not an official one. Sister Ann remembered _everyone's_ birthday, though, and made sure they got a cupcake and a small gift – usually a cheap plastic rosary – and Caleb was no different. He was still a little fuzzy on just what the string of beads was used for, but he kept it with the rest of his few belongings. One of the older boys who shared his room, eleven year-old David, had nine of them hanging from the corner-post of his bed.

David was a happily cheerful kid, for all that he grew up in the Home, but Caleb figured that was because he didn't remember his parents. Caleb could sort-of understand that, having never known his mom, but he could still remember his dad in painful clarity, even though just how he'd died had vanished from his ability to recall; he knew that his dad had been killed during a convenience store robbery, but he didn't remember actually being there when it happened. But David had shown him the lay of the land during his first few weeks at the Home, and had also managed to entertain him with some minor magic tricks when nightmares woke him in the middle of the night.

Besides David, two other boys shared their small dorm at the Home – Charlie, age eight, and Marshal, age ten. It had taken Caleb over a month to figure out why Charlie never spoke and why the other boy didn't go to school with the rest of the kids. Charlie was deaf. Caleb had overheard a couple of the teenagers gossiping about him and heard that it was because his mother had done too many drugs before he was born. Caleb wasn't altogether certain what drugs were, other than the word sometimes meant 'medicine', but he was sure that whatever they were, they were bad news. Marshal, on the other hand, talked enough to make up for Charlie's silence. And neither Marshal nor David had any trouble in playing with Charlie – both had learned to use the sign language that Charlie needed to communicate – and Caleb was rapidly learning it, too.

The night of Caleb's birthday, David gathered his roommates up shortly after supper ended and herded them to their room. He'd managed to steal two beers from the fridge of one of the adults' rooms in order to celebrate.

As none of them had tried it before, half a bottle each was sufficient to make them a little tipsy. Bit by bit, they started telling stories. First about their favorite memories, or about things that had happened at school, and then about what had happened to some of the other kids who had lived at the Home in the past. David told most of these last tales, but Marshal had more than a few of his own.

Eventually, the tales turned from things they had actually seen and done to what they had heard about from others. And it didn't take long at all for the stories to turn as dark as a child could imagine.

"I heard," Marshal said, signing his words for Charlie, "that some of the people who come here looking for a kid, like if theys can't have any of their own, will take one home – an' the kid thinks he's got it made, ya know, a real home for a change – an' then, bam! Outta nowhere the parents have a kid of their own, so they figger they don't need one-a us no more, an theys brings the kid _back_, like how ya'd take a radio that don't work none back to th' store."

"That's nothin'," David interrupted, likewise signing his words for Charlie's benefit. "_I_ heard that some'uv them folk don't really wanna _kid_, least not like a real fambly-type kid. They want someone ta do all th' housework an' chores an' stuff." Had he been raised in a different subsection of society, he likely would have said 'they wanna _house elf_, not a kid', but that bit of the world was forever locked beyond his understanding. "An' I _also_ heard that those same folk'll wind up beatin' on ya if ya don't work fast enough."

"So what?" Caleb scoffed. Marshal and David both signed his words for him, though Caleb did what words and phrases he knew. "Sister Margaret beats on us all th' time with a ruler in Sunday school."

Marshal, whose mouth had earned him more than his fair share of knuckle-swats, nodded in agreement and looked questioningly at David. David sighed a little and elaborated, "Yeah, she do, but that ain't what I mean. Like that story we had ta read a while back, 'bout all them slaves in Egypt an' how if they ain't workin' hard enough they'd get whipped with a _real_ whip."

"Thought it was a _lash_ in th' story," Marshal pointed out.

"Same thing, moron."

"Shut up, reject."

Caleb rolled his eyes as Marshal and David shot playful insults back and forth over the remaining hour before lights-out. They were both 'full of it', as he knew his dad would have said, even if it would still be a couple of years before he figured out just what 'it' meant. However, the horror stories stuck in his head from that point on, and if the adults who ran the Home ever noticed how he'd disappear when potential parents came calling (no matter how hard they tried to keep it quiet, somehow the information always got out), they never said anything about it.

Caleb remained roommates with Marshal, Charlie, and David until Charlie turned twelve and was accepted to a special school for the deaf. His bed remained empty for nearly a full year before a boy who was, if possible, even _quieter_ than the kid who couldn't talk. The newbie's name was Hector, and when he'd shown up, he'd had two black eyes and a cast on his left arm. He was ten at the time, and the other three occupants of the room quickly learned not to make sudden moves in Heck's direction. Caleb's brain took this as evidence that maybe not _all_ of David's tales on that long-ago night were bull. The theory gained more credence when, eventually, he learned that Heck had been in and out of foster homes since he was a baby.

Since Caleb and Heck were nearly the exact same age (their birthdays were literally a day apart), the two of them became extremely close friends before the cast was removed. It helped that both were fascinated by the things that could be done with slight-of-hand. The week that the plaster cast was to come off was also the same day that David was moved into the men's quarters. Though David now lived on the other side of the building from his friends, he still made time to hang out with them – something most teenagers wouldn't even _think_ about. Marshal followed David's example a year later when, on his fifteenth birthday, he was moved to the men's quarters.

The fourth bed in the room wouldn't be used again in Caleb's remaining time at the Home, but shortly after Marshal moved out, an eleven year-old by the name of Taylor moved in. Taylor wound up leaving the Home after only a few weeks, something to do with his parents getting a divorce and his mom threatening (in front of a judge, no less) to kill his dad if the man got custody. That seemed to set the stage for a long succession of short-timers – kids who would stay, at most, six months before being fostered out or returned to their parents.

Caleb felt sorry for the short-timers. Most of them knew that they weren't going to stay, and so never bothered with trying to get to know anyone. One in particular seemed to sum it all up for Caleb. It had been late May, the spring of the year Caleb was to turn fourteen, and he and Heck had returned from one of the last days of school to find a smallish twelve year-old sitting on the oft-used third bed of their room. A battered brown school bag and a faded green duffle sat at the foot of the bed. Caleb had started in with his 'the third drawer down is yours' speech that he gave all the newbies, but the kid had just shook his head. "Don't bother," he'd said, "I'm not unpacking. 'S'not worth it. Gonna be outta here in a week, tops, an' pro'ly shuffled through three places 'fore summer's half-gone."

Though Caleb never asked why the kid – to this day, he still had no idea what his name had been – was so sure of that, only that he was absolutely positive he _never_ wanted to go through it, too.


	4. Chapter 4

_June 9, 1985, morning_

It was completely, totally unfair that he still had to go to Sunday school with all the freakin' ankle-biters. But those were the rules – he had to attend Sunday school until he either turned fifteen and could move into the men's quarters and start spending his weekends looking for a job or until he had memorized each and every one of the fables they spent their time studying. Since there were nearly a thousand of the freakin' things in the book they used, each of which were at least five or six pages long, Caleb doubted that the second option would be open to him. In fact, during the – _freakin' hell, has it been that long already?_ – nine years he'd been wasting his Sunday mornings in the crowded Sunday school classroom, only one person had managed the feat. The girl had been twelve or thirteen and had already decided to become a nun when she grew up, but that had been back in '79, and no one else had even attempted the memorization before or since. Caleb doubted that he'd see it happen again before he could finally cease with the whole wasting-away-half-the-weekend thing.

Not that he'd be doing much else, mind. But if he decided to waste his Sunday mornings after moving to the men's hall by sleeping instead of attending mass, then that would be _his_ choice.

He let out a jaw-cracking yawn and wished for the umpteenth time that 'kids' were allowed coffee with their breakfasts. As it stood, he used the pocket money he received from doing odd jobs around the Home, church, and rectory to buy a morning cup of joe at the McDonalds on his way to school every morning. Saturdays didn't much matter, as he could sleep as late as he wished.

The industrial-looking clock that hung over the door ticked loudly over the sound of fifty-eight children too cowed by Sister Margaret's ruler to even _think_ about being noisy while they waited for the sister to show up for the day's lesson. Caleb had discovered shortly after his arrival at the Home that when it was quiet enough, he could hear himself blink. It was in these absolutely silent and still minutes before Sister Margaret's appearance that he further learned that it was possible to hear _others_ blink.

When the clock showed the hour at two minutes to eight, the entire class collectively made an effort to even _breathe_ quietly. Thirty seconds passed and questioning looks began to be traded among the long-timers (_lifers_, Caleb thought). The clock clicked over to one minute remaining until eight o'clock, and everyone seemed to hold their breath, straining to hear the sound of approaching footsteps.

When eight-oh-one came and went with still no sign of the nun, the confusion trickled down through the younger kids and the short-timers. Sister Margaret _defined_ punctuality. Where talking out of turn earned a swat on the knuckles with her ever-present ruler, and profanity yielded a month's worth of Saturdays beginning with a lecture on clean language followed by a long day of menial labor, tardiness produced the sternest possible punishment – a full week of lockdown (the kids' term, Sister Margaret simply called it 'grounding') where the perpetrator wasn't allowed outside his or her room for a full seven days, not even to go to school. It was a sure way to make sure that none of the kids overslept on Sunday. Just to make sure, Caleb had four different alarm clocks in his and Heck's room – one that plugged in, two that ran on batteries, and a wind-up one that sounded like the old telephone he could barely remember from the apartment where he and his dad had lived…_before_.

At eight-oh-three, Sandra Colfax (already fifteen, but volunteering to help out with the littlest children, of which there were nine, all between three and five), leaned over to where Caleb and Heck were sitting. "Should we go get someone? Maybe the sister is ill?"

Heck shrugged and looked to Caleb for direction.

Caleb shrugged and had to force himself not to smirk at the reactions of the other kids to Sandra's whisper. _They look like Sis Maggie is just gonna jump outta the closet at the least li'l noise!_ "Let's give her a few minutes. Heard-tell that college kids wait five 'fore leavin' if the prof don't show. They call it the 'five-minute rule'."

Sandra started to open her mouth to reply when the sound of footsteps finally filtered in from the hallway outside the classroom. As one, the entire class took a quick, deep breath and let it out. Most of the ones old enough to ponder such things wondered just what sort of punishment the nun would inflict on herself – after all, she hated hypocrisy _almost_ as much as tardiness or profanity.

Fifty-eight pairs of eyes blinked when the nun appeared. It wasn't Sister Margaret.

Sister Ann greeted the group with a cheerful, "Good morning, class! Sister Margaret is feeling a little under the weather today, so I'll be filling in for her."

Normally, of all the assorted religious-type folk who came and went around the Home, Caleb got along the best with Sister Ann. She had a bright and sunny personality, and though she had made a life of her faith, she understood that not everyone did or even _could_ believe in the same god as she did – in short, she didn't preach. She also tended to turn a mostly-blind eye to the kids caught out-of-bounds, as long as they weren't hurting anyone or anything (especially themselves). But something about her that morning set Caleb's teeth on edge.

He pushed it aside.

"Today," she continued, not noticing Caleb's unease, "we'll be doing things a little differently. I know that Sister Margaret usually reads you your lesson and then she discusses it with the older kids while her helper – this year, I see it's Sandra – works with the younger children on some sort of artistic project relevant to the story." She beckoned to Sandra, "Come here, child." When Sandra reached the front of the class, Sister Ann smiled at her. The expression, normally just a part and parcel of Sister Ann's whole demeanor, sent a tingle of gooseflesh down Caleb's spine. "Why don't you take the littles out to the playground for the morning? Pick two of the older girls to help you keep an eye on them. It's far too beautiful a morning to keep them inside."

Sandra returned Sister Ann's smile and looked up at the hopeful faces of twenty girls ranging in age from six to thirteen. "Stacy and Rebecca, how about you two give me a hand?"

_Makes sense,_ Caleb thought, _they're the next oldest after Sandy._

While the three girls gathered up the smallest members of the class and herded them out, Sister Ann spoke again, "While they're collecting themselves, I want the rest of you to number off by sixes. Benjamin, why don't you start?"

One by one, the remaining forty-six students dutifully counted off by sixes. "Okay, before we go any further, if your number was 'four', please raise your hand." Nine hands raised, counting Heck's. "Julie," Sister Ann addressed the just-turned six year-old, "why don't you head on out and join those on the playground?"

Then it was the 'threes' turn to identify themselves. The spare 'three' was given a list of books to receive from the Home's library. The additional 'two' was sent out with Julie. And Caleb found himself being the additional 'one'. Sister Ann gave him a list like the one she had sent with the 'three', only it looked to be a shopping list. "Please pick up these things from Drogan's down on fifteenth, Caleb. Let the cashier know to put it all on St. Theresa's tab. If you need bus fare, stop by and speak with Carson in the office."

Knowing that Sister Ann's claim of it being too beautiful a day to spend inside was completely true, Caleb shrugged after scanning down the list. "Naw, sister, ain't a problem. I'll walk it." _And get me some coffee while I'm out_, he added, unsaid.

As he left the classroom behind, his footsteps echoed down the long hallway, bordered by more classrooms on either side (dating from when the Home had originally been a parochial boarding school – but the church that ran the place had neither the personnel nor the money to hire teachers enough to justify continuing in that vein) and heard Sister Ann asking the 'ones' to wait for her in the former art room at the end of the hall.

Though he'd tried to bury his unease, he couldn't help but think that something was _wrong_.


	5. Chapter 5

_June 9, 1985, midday_

It took him only an hour to walk to the drugstore and pick up the list of assorted whatnots on Sister Ann's list. He actually only had to hand the list to Mr. Drogan who was manning the register that day, and the middle-aged man spent all of ten minutes finding the items the sister had requested. The unease in his gut, quiet though it was now that he was nowhere near the church, led Caleb to make his own purchase from his pocket money of a Snickers bar after Drogan assured him that the items for Sister Ann were, indeed, covered by the Home's tab.

He walked slowly back, hoping that the candy bar would help to settle the twisting sensation in his gut, but the closer he got to the church and its sprawling, interconnected labyrinth of halls, buildings, and enclosed courtyards, the worse it got.

Wondering if maybe it wasn't simply a sign of caffeine withdrawal, Caleb spun on his heel and all but ran for the local McDonalds. By the time he got there, his stomach was feeling much better, and he nearly laughed at himself for the action. His amusement at himself didn't keep him from ordering the largest cup of coffee the fast-food joint had on offer, however. He drank it slowly, unwilling to admit, even to himself, that he absolutely did _not_ want to go back to St. Theresa's. After draining the cup, he ordered a second one. He knew two would be enough to make him jittery later, but he couldn't think up any other reason to stall his return to the home. He drank it as slowly as the first, grateful for the first time for the fact that the fast-food coffee was served at roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun. When nothing remained in the styrofoam cup but a few flecks of grounds, Caleb glanced at the decorative clock hung where the employees could easily see it. It was nearing eleven already. Sunday school had been out for almost an hour. This time, he did laugh at himself. He tossed the cup into the trash bin by the door and jogged back to the Home. He forced himself to ignore the rising uneasiness that twisted through his gut the closer he came.

As it wasn't the first time he'd run an errand down to Drogan's drugstore, Caleb knew the procedure. He stopped by Carson's office – luckily, the accountant was out for lunch – and dropped the receipt in the man's in-box, and then headed up to the fourth floor. He'd only been down that particular hall a few times before. It was where the eight Sisters who lived at the Home stayed. There were also a couple of guest rooms set up in case any higher-ups in the church needed to stay over for any reason.

He left the bag from Drogan's outside Sister Ann's room, and wondered (not for the first time) just what the sisters' rooms looked like on the inside. Though he knew how to pick a lock – he and Heck had been taught by David the summer before the older boy had left for good to go to college, using the locks on the doors in the mostly-abandoned classroom area for practice – he also knew that the sisters' rooms were never locked. He didn't want to chance getting caught, though. Just the year before, a man had accidentally wandered into the wrong hallway and walked in on one of the sisters as she was changing for bed. The man had been forcibly ejected from the premises and a Polaroid of his face had been tacked to the bulletin board by the main entrance with a couple of others who had been permanently barred from the Home's services. He didn't know if the same punishment stood for a 'kid' like himself, but he didn't really want to know badly enough to find out.

Caleb turned to retrace his steps back down to the second floor, idly wondering if maybe the churning sensation in his stomach might not be a sign that he was coming down with something and thinking that maybe he should lay down for a while, when something caught his eye. The fourth-floor hallway was dimly lit. Wall sconces placed next to each of the doors put out marginally more light than a nightlight and the windows at either end of the hall weren't in a position to catch much light from outside – the one at the far end from the stairs faced the side of the church proper and was always in shadow and the one at the end with the stairs was on the north side of the building. Regardless of the low light, something on the floor, almost directly under one of the doors, managed to shine with a dull crimson color on the polished hardwood floor.

The twisting sensation that had been plaguing Caleb since Sister Ann showed up in class that morning sharpened painfully as the fourteen year-old cautiously stepped towards the tiny fragment of reflected red light. He knew what it was lying there on the floor, but didn't want to admit it to himself. Caleb ran a shaky hand through his hair and tried to distract himself by wondering if it was time to get the dark brown mass of curls he'd been cursed with hacked back to a length that didn't make him look like a living version of the stone cherub that overlooked the playground.

He looked around, hoping that maybe one of the sisters would make an appearance, so he wouldn't have to actually confirm that what he was seeing was what he thought it was. Sadly, luck was not with him. Caleb folded his gangly limbs and crouched by the door. Since it was the second one from the stairs on the right-hand side, he knew it was Sister Margaret's room. He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts that kept trying to distract him – even though he didn't want to do it, he knew that if that little puddle (_maybe its paint_) was…well, _whatever_, then he had a responsibility to do something about it.

Long fingers well-suited to his chosen hobbies of magic tricks and slight-of-hand stretched down and barely brushed the surface of the tiny puddle. The liquid contained in that misshapen splat the size of a silver dollar clung to the tips of his middle and ring fingers. _Please, let it be paint. Let it be paint_, the thought echoed in his mind, throbbing behind his eyes as he brought his hand up and sniffed the not-so-mysterious substance.

The scent which met his nostrils was neither the sharp, clean scent of wet wall paint, nor the weirdly thick, earthy smell of the tempera used in art class, but a visceral, metallic tang.

It was definitely _not_ paint.

'_Under the weather'_ _could mean a lotta things,_ part of Caleb's mind tried to rationalize, _maybe Sis Maggie cut herself helping with breakfast or something_. A larger part of his mind countered with the observation that he hadn't seen Sisters Ann or Margaret at breakfast – not altogether an unusual occurrence for either of them: Sister Ann usually didn't partake of the morning meal (eating too soon after waking made her nauseous) and Sister Margaret almost always oversaw the adult volunteers in the kitchen – and if Sister Margaret had hurt herself, she would have gone to the infirmary, not her room. The smallest portion of his brain, rarely heard by the main halves and the same portion that thought chemistry was the most _wonderful_ thing ever invented by mankind (it kinda had a 'thing' for explosions), simply took macabre delight in experiencing a bit of real-life gore.

Caleb stood, reflexively wiping his hand off on the tail of his t-shirt, and knocked on the door. "Sister Margaret?" he tried to say, but all that escaped from his mouth was an embarrassing squeaking noise. He cleared his throat and tried again, knocking a second time. "Sister Margaret? Are you alright?"

When only silence met his question, he took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. He cast one more hopeful glance around the hallway, desperately hoping for someone to show up and either take over or forcibly eject him from the Home – anything to keep him from opening that door. He knew, with absolute certainty, that whatever waited on the other side of the heavy oak was definitely not something he wanted to see. The steel wire that had been coiling around his innards tightened, growing barbs when his hand connected with the warm brass knob.

The hallway remained silent save for Caleb's own breathing, and no one appeared.

He turned the knob and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.


	6. Chapter 6

_Still June 9, 1985, midday_

What lay beyond the door kept any and all satisfaction at finally seeing what the nuns' rooms were like from surfacing in his mind until much, much later. Indeed, most of the details (like the fact that though the room was about the same size as his own, it seemed larger because it was sparsely furnished, with only a twin-size bed, small desk and wooden chair, and chest of drawers) wouldn't surface outside the realm of nightmares for _years_.

The first thing that did manage to make an impression was all the _blood_ – it soaked the bed, dripping thickly from the plain wool blanket, and seemed to cover every available surface. The room's window, letting in a large amount of warm sunlight, cast everything in stark relief, save for the handful of splatters across the glass. The blood on the glass seemed lit with an inner fire, and were it not for the overwhelming state of the room, Caleb might have noticed that the sunshine streaming through the splatters made them actually quite beautiful.

The second was the _smell_. Thick and heavy with copper that seemed more of a taste than a scent, the thought _how could this not be smelled in the hall_ flashed through Caleb's mind before it had time to register.

Another thought, this one far more stubborn than those that had flickered in and out of existence like fireflies' mating beacons since opening the door lodged right at the forefront of Caleb's mind. _Where is Sister Margaret?_

Caleb may not have liked the sister all that much, but he didn't want to see her hurt. He looked around the room in more detail, forcing himself to ignore both the blood and his frustrated curiosity at whether or not there was enough of the red liquid spread around to have killed someone. _If she's really hurt, I'll hafta call for help. Will they hear me downstairs if I yell?_

Though he tried not to step in any of the puddles, it was unavoidable. He crossed the room and checked the other side of the bed and the far side of the chest of drawers. The space under the bed was empty, as was the knee-space under the desk. _She's not here,_ he realized. _Maybe she's at the hospital? Would be why Sister Ann said what she did. They probably haven't had time to clean up yet, 'specially if they had to deal with some sicko._

Before any more rationalizations could form, the sole of his sneaker came down on something sitting, unnoticed, at the edge of the puddle closest to the bed. It squished slightly, before making a loud, wet snap.

Removing his foot from the object with a jerky motion that had more in common with the instinctive reaction to brushing against a hot frying pan than any sort of locomotion, Caleb looked down to see what he'd stepped on.

Though bloody and somewhat mangled, there was no mistaking what it was.

A finger.

The candy bar, his two coffees, and his breakfast made a sudden reappearance. The smell of half-digested pancakes and coffee and stomach acid made him gag again, but he could only dry-heave as nothing was left to throw up. His eyes watering from the force with which his body had rejected the food, Caleb fled the room, slipping twice on puddles of blood.

He was moving fast enough that it was a wonder he didn't trip on the stairs and break his neck. On reaching the landing for the second floor, he collided with Carson. Before the man could start to berate the teen for clumsiness, running indoors, or whatever other infraction (real or imagined) the man could dream up, Caleb began babbling. "Carson! Sister Margaret! Too much blood, Sister Ann sent me to Drogan's but I saw it on the floor upstairs and maybe she was hurt so I had to check, but there was a finger and and…" the tirade was cut short as his stomach tried to reject itself again.

Realizing that the kid wasn't messing around – no one, no matter how good an actor, could fake that particular shade of pasty green – Carson tried to get some sense out of him. "Hold up there, son," he placed a hand on the kid's shoulder, his normal dislike of person-to-person interactions temporarily suspended, "just calm down. Take a couple of deep breaths for me, and _then_ tell me what's got you so worked up."

The physical contact with his shoulder served to ground Caleb's whirlwind anti-thoughts and he did as the Home's accountant suggested and took a deep breath. The air further served to calm him some, and after breathing in a second, he collected his thoughts and tried again. "There's something _really _wrong, sir. Sister Margaret's room is…is…" A couple of faint twinges from his abdominal muscles made his breath hitch before he willed the sensations away.

"Is what?" Carson asked, pushing aside his curiosity at what the teen had been doing on the fourth floor to begin with.

"There's a _lot_ of blood." Unnoticed by Caleb, his breathing started coming shorter and faster. "I stepped on a _finger_."

Had it not been for the little signs like the sheen of cold sweat on the kid's brow and a smear of fresh red marring the side of the kid's dirty white sneaker, Carson would have been tempted to think it was nothing more than an elaborate prank. However, as he'd told himself earlier, no one was _that_ good of an actor. He was still skeptical that it could possibly be as bad as all that, though, and figured he should probably check things out himself. If it turned out that the kid had overreacted (_Or hallucinated, who knows what shit the kids these days are experimenting with can do?_), then he would call one of the sisters to deal with addressing how the kid had been out-of-bounds. "There's a sofa in my office, son. Go sit down before you fall down and wait for me to come back."

Caleb nodded distractedly and headed in the direction of the promised couch. Carson waited until the kid had disappeared through the door before heading towards the fourth floor. Beginning at the third step up from the third-floor landing, the accountant found the first signs that the kid hadn't been exaggerating. A partial footprint in rich red marred the green carpet runner. Another footprint, more complete than the last, and of the same foot (the left) slowly dried on the fifth step up. The sixth step held the faint outline of a right shoeprint.

Carson sprinted the remaining distance, following the footprints that grew in clarity the closer he came to the room the kid had mentioned.

Back in the accountant's office, a little less than two minutes after sinking onto the horribly ugly sofa, Caleb heard what he thought to be the scream of a frightened twelve year-old girl. He jumped back to his feet and threw the door open. A second scream sounded in the wake of the first, drifting down from the stairwell. Much later, Caleb would take the time to find the humor inherent with the fact that the paunchy, forty-something, balding accountant had a scream even more appropriate to horror movies than that of Jamie Lee Curtis.

The scream managed to attract the attention of just about every person who spent their Sunday afternoons lingering around the Home. One of the men who lived on the second floor – Caleb knew him by sight, if not by name – stumbled out of his room and shouted down the hall for someone by the name of Zeke to turn his damn TV down because _some of us work the night shift, asshole_.

By the time the man had finished his complaint, roughly a dozen people had gathered in the hall. One of them, Sister Sarah, noticed Caleb. "Mr. Forrester?" she had obviously heard the scream, but had mistakenly connected it to the still-pale teen.

Caleb shook his head, "Weren't me, sister. I reckon it come from Carson, up on the fourth floor."

"And just what would _Mr._ Carson be doing up there?" As she always did, the light emphasis she placed on the title clearly conveyed her desire for everyone to also use people's proper titles. "And just why aren't you with the rest of the children? They must be having quite a bit of fun – shame you seem to be missing out – as they haven't yet appeared for lunch. I should send some of the girls down to the class with some snacks…" the last bit was said with the tone of someone making a verbal note to themselves.

The barbs on the wire cinched in his gut grew spikes. "They're still not done with class?" Panic seized Caleb and refused to let go. He only managed not to physically express this panic by shaking the nun by sheer force of will alone.

"No, dear. Have you been ill?"

Caleb ignored the question and babbled out a quicker explanation of what he'd found in Sister Margaret's room than the first one he'd given to Carson. Before any of the cluster of adults could question him further, he shoved himself out of the crowd and ran as fast as his coltish legs could take him to the Sunday school classroom.


	7. Chapter 7

_June 9, 1985, early afternoon_

Though that selfish part of his mind that delighted in explosions and gore was busy berating the rest of his mind for not listening to the warnings it had been sending out to _get the hell out of there_, the rest of his brain was too occupied with trying to both understand what was going on and figure out a way to escape this mess with his life intact.

All his efforts at escape proved singularly futile. Had he been secured with ropes, Caleb would likely have been able to worry them enough to loosen them, but there weren't any ropes. Nor were there any chains, or string, or yarn, or anything else physically holding him in place against the wall of the old chemistry lab. A nearly-unnoticed thud of something moving in the room had led him to check this room before any of the others, and he'd only had time to open the door before being flung against the wall. He'd collided hard enough that speckles of black glitter danced across his vision for nearly a full minute. During that time, all he could think was, _At least I didn't hit the blackboard, the chalk-tray woulda cut me in half_.

When his vision cleared, he started struggling. His stomach gave a tired, halfhearted lurch at what he saw, but settled quickly – it had already gotten rid of anything it had contained and there was no further point in trying. Caleb both hoped and didn't hope that he was becoming desensitized to wholesale blood and gore.

It took several moments of disbelieving staring before he realized that Sister Ann was in the middle of the mess, talking in a low murmur that he couldn't make out, with her left hand fingering something small that hung on a string around her neck and reaching out with her right hand to a hovering splatter of red. Forcibly ignoring the splash of blood that was in the process of defying all known laws of gravity, Caleb strained his ears to hear what the sister was saying. It didn't sound like English; it was both more guttural and more melodic than any language Caleb had heard. The same tiny bit of awareness that had noticed the beauty of sunlit blood earlier further noticed that whatever language it might have been was also entrancingly pretty. It made the surrounding horror all the more jarring.

He tried to turn his head to see more of the room, hoping that someone else might still be alive, but found that all he could move were his eyes. It was enough, however, to see Heck similarly pinned to the wall that connected to his own. Heck had his eyes closed, and Caleb didn't know if that meant that his friend was unconscious or simply trying to hold on to sanity by not watching what was sure to have been a horrific experience.

Sister Ann laughed and Caleb turned his eyes back to the nun. "You really should have listened to your instincts, Caleb." That inner fragment of personality that had been pressing that exact same issue moments earlier shouted up through his mind with an 'I told you so!' "I was more than willing to let you go, like I let the youngest ones and that irritating little bitch and her friends go. I only needed forty-two sacrifices to finish binding the daevas, after all, and my father had told me not to waste time with this job. Time grows short, or so he's been saying for the last thirteen years or so." Her next sentence was uttered with a conspiratorial grin, "Personally, I think he's been around too long – his inner clock is all messed up." She walked towards him, daintily picking her way over and around bloody chunks strewn across the floor. "But that doesn't much matter. Patience is the name of the game, and my rewards will be so worth the wait – Father promised I would be the Head Beastmaster under the new regime, a position worthy of respect, I promise you."

As the nun came closer to him, Caleb saw that the thing on the string around her neck was a shiny grey circular piece with a blackened design etched on its surface – the design looked rather like a sharply-shaped 'S' of three lines, a circle interrupting the center of the middle line (a stylized and simplified version of the '§' sign he didn't know he knew). While the image on the pendent branded itself on his memory, Sister Ann continued to talk. "What to do with you, though? I mean, Father did say not to indulge in any nonessential deaths – that the sacrifices alone would be enough to trigger alarms that could cause problems later – but I don't really see how just _one_ extra body will make all that much difference at this point. You know what I mean, right?"

The sad part was that Caleb could see her point of view on the subject. With so many mutilated corpses, one more almost wouldn't be noticed amid the carnage.

"You just sit tight, kiddo, and let me finish up here. Then you and me can go somewhere a little less…messy and have our own little ritual. You just might be enough to increase my power to the next pay-bracket – it would be nice not to have to worry about the water any more."

What happened next pushed that rather puzzling statement completely out of Caleb's brain. With the nun still standing only a few feet from him, he watched as…_something_ slowly tore Heck to pieces. Amid the screaming, he heard Sister Ann say, "Keep screaming, little Hector. You obviously weren't listening earlier when I said that no one would hear you outside this room."

As blood sprayed from a torn artery, Caleb realized that he could see a faint outline of a being too gruesome for mere words to describe. Whatever it was, it made most of his mind shut down in horror. His breathing came faster and shallower when he noticed a second collection of blood-splatters in a similar configuration helping the first thing tear into Heck's flesh. Squelching, tearing noises filled the air, as did unearthly grunts uttered from throats that had no business lingering in the bright light of day (regardless of the fact that the former chemistry classroom was shrouded in twilight with all the blinds drawn).

Chunks of meat and viscera and bone seemingly disappeared in midair and Caleb knew then that they were _eating_ Heck. He could feel his grip on sanity slipping further and further out of his reach.

When the outlines of blood-spray stood to either side of Heck's mutilated carcass and tore it in half like kids with a turkey wishbone on Christmas Eve, his conscious wandered off, muttering about how it had had _enough_. The last thing he noticed as his vision faded and sound disappeared was a tall, burly guy bursting into the room, carrying one of those hand-pump pesticide sprayers in one hand and a gun in the other.

The blessed oblivion of unconsciousness didn't last long enough, in Caleb's oh-so-humble opinion. He came-to when whatever force that had been holding him pressed against the classroom wall disappeared and he landed in a painful heap on the floor. Shrill screams (more manly than those manufactured by the Home's resident accountant) pierced through his skull, along with a deep and rumbling man's voice spitting rapid-fire Latin, and, when the screaming paused, Sister Ann shouting insults and profanity.

Caleb managed to make himself look up to see what was going on. The man he'd glimpsed before passing out was using both hands – there was no sign of the gun now, and Caleb wondered if maybe he'd imagined it – to operate the sprayer, aiming its contents at the writhing, smoking nun. The Latin continued from the man's lips until the nun arched back and a roiling mass of black smoke escaped her mouth with a dull roaring noise. The smoke sparked out of existence with flashes of light the same orange-red tone of burning coal. A bright yellow dust sprinkled down from where the smoke disappeared, and even over the slaughterhouse stench of the room, Caleb could smell sulphur.

The man made an irritated noise and brushed the yellow dust off his shoulders as he turned around. "You alright, kid?" he asked, seeing that the teen had managed to pick himself up off the floor.

"You mean besides being scarred for freakin' _life_?" Caleb couldn't keep the snarky reply from bursting out – he'd just been through far too much that day to keep being polite and respectful.

The man chuckled, "Yeah, you're alright."

"You wanna tell me just what the _hell_ is going on?"

The man chuckled again, "Interesting choice of words there, sonny, 'cause that's exactly what happened." Knowing that his response was likely to frustrate the kid even more, the man simply held out his hand. "Name's Joshua." The kid seemed to shake the proffered hand out of reflex. "Let's get outta this hole 'fore anyone shows up. You saw what happened, so you deserve a decent explanation. The sheep can just keep wondering."


	8. Chapter 8

_September 14, 1986_

"Happy birthday, kid," Joshua said, handing the fosterling a small wrapped box. The fact that it was wrapped up in old newspaper was just one of the details of their normal life and not something Caleb ever really cared about.

The brand-new sixteen year-old took the box. It wasn't really big enough to hold anything lethal, and was entirely the wrong shape for a book. It was only about three inches long, an inch or so tall, and two inches wide. He looked up at Josh. "Is it safe to shake?"

The man sighed and rolled his eyes skywards as though asking the heavens to explain just what had ever possessed him enough to actually agree to taking in the brat. "Just open the fucking thing, Caleb."

"You have no appreciation for the finer things in life, Josh," Caleb retorted, ripping the scrap of newsprint off the box. Opening the tiny cardboard container, Caleb could only stare at its contents.

"Well?" Joshua prompted. "Aincha gonna say nothin'?"

Caleb delicately picked the keyring up, already enjoying the jangling noise as the keys clinked together. "Really?" he said.

"Yeah," Joshua nodded.

"No, I mean _really_?"

Joshua chuckled, the sound still identical to the gravely rumble of noise that had been so weirdly apt to the classroom-cum-charnel-house where they had met. "An' I still say _yeah_. We'll stop by the storage place an' pick her up after you pass your license test." He paused and shot a serious look at the kid. "That is, _if_ you pass."

Caleb grinned, "Of course I'll pass."

He did, only missing two questions on the written exam and making full marks during the practical. And the car was absolutely beautiful, for all that it was getting up there in years – all sleek lines and shining dark blue metal and chrome. Just the thing for a good long road trip. Once he managed to find a tape deck for it first.

* * *

**A/N2:** Before anyone can point out the inconsistency of holy water working when hallowed ground didn't, keep in mind that this is an inconsistency inherent in Show – remember that the Meg bitch was able to walk into Pastor Jim's church and slit his throat, yet in the subsequent episodes, holy water burned her.

Also, just for your information, the character map calls '§' a 'section sign'. I usually refer to it as _The Sims _money-symbol. As I have no idea as to the origin of this symbol (and Google has proven yet again that it loathes me), I went with the assumption that it's been around a while. If this is incorrect, please ignore the discrepancy.

This story was mainly to get me back into the swing of writing again – I sorta fell out of the habit of writing daily when I got roped into some RL shit (not to mention finding my Black&White game CD). I have another onefer planned for the RFYL 'verse, but I don't know when or even _if_ I'll ever get it posted – but it was in the research and notes phase of that fic that this one came raging up out of the demonic plotbunny infested darkness.

If you're interested, Bryant's 'aging station wagon' can be seen here:

en (dot) wikipedia (dot) org (slash) wiki (slash) File:1958 (underscore) Ambassador (underscore) 4-d (underscore) hardtop (underscore) wagon (underscore) 1 (dot) JPG

And Caleb's car is viewable here:

http (colon, slash, slash, triple-W, dot) seriouswheels (dot) com (slash) 1960-1969 (slash) 1966-Oldsmobile-Toronado-Jay-Leno-FA-1024x768 (dot) htm

Thanks for reading, until next time!


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